Teacher Wins Fight For Pay

March 08, 1991|By MARK FELSENTHAL Staff Writer

SALUDA — It was the case of a lone teacher fighting the system, and the teacher prevailed Thursday in Middlesex Circuit Court.

``This is a chance to be fair and I intend to exercise that chance,'' said Circuit Judge John M. Folkes, as he decided the Middlesex County School Board had to pay Kathy Rodgers $2,300 for a vacation she didn't take before quitting her job in June.

Rodgers, who now teaches in Lancaster County, said outside the courtroom she felt like the decision was a triumph for the little guy.

After learning in the spring of 1990 that she would face a pay cut in the 1990-91 school year, Rodgers ``very easily'' found another teaching job, she said Thursday in court. She had been a teacher in Middlesex for 15 years and had worked to develop its Family Life Education curriculum.

Rodgers notified the School Board in mid-June of her intention to resign. She said she was willing to complete work on family life and vocational education projects but told the board she wanted to be paid for 17 days of vacation time she had saved, she said in court Thursday.

``I'll take my leave or I will work if you will pay me for that time,'' she wrote to the School Board.

The board asked her to proceed with the work. It also decided to check with an accountant to determine if Rodgers could claim her vacation pay, and later decided not to pay her.

``If the School Board had the slightest equivocation about paying her,'' Folkes asked Middlesex County Attorney Michael T. Soberick, ``why didn't the School Board get in touch with her immediately to let her know?''

Soberick argued that School Board policy does not require it to pay teachers for vacation time they have not taken. He said Rodgers had been paid for all of the time she worked.

But Folkes said the motion to check with accountants followed as an afterthought.

``Any reasonable person would conclude that an agreement had been struck,'' he said. ``I don't think it's fair for her not to be paid.''